I cover the video game industry, write about gamers, and review video games.
You can follow me on Twitter and hit me up there if you have any questions or comments you'd like to chat about.
Disclosure: Many of the video games I review were provided as free review copies. This does not influence my coverage or reviews of these games.
I do not own stock in any of the companies I cover. I do not back any Kickstarter projects related to video games. I do not fund anyone in the industry on Patreon.

“Aside from the fact that this is clearly a lame attempt to attract publicity on the back of a major video game release,” writes Forbes video game writer David Ewalt, “PETA seems to have missed the single biggest theme of the Pokémon series: That Pokémon should be treated humanely and live as our equals.”

The animal rights group has a long history of missing the point. They have an even longer history of trying to gain attention whether or not that attention will further their supposed cause.

Nor is this the first time the anti-Pokémon group has come out against video games and their digital “cruelty” toward animals.

I can count four other times video games have come into the PETA crosshairs.

1. PETA urges players to save the seals in World of Warcraft

Way, way back in 2009 PETA urged its members to log in to World of Warcraft and do battle against seal hunters in the Level 70+ region of the Howling Fjord where apparently Horde players were clubbing a bunch of digital baby seals to death.

“Thrall refused to ban the slaughter of seals, despite multiple requests from the Alliance to do so, because Orgrimmar stands to make a large profit from the fur,” PETA said in a blog post on the matter.

Talk about slacktivism.

This might all seem like good, clean fun – a way to get the kids involved maybe – if it weren’t for what happened to Mario two years later.

The really ludicrous thing about this campaign is that the Tanooki suit was first spotted in North America in 1990, when the suit was discovered by multitudes of gamers (including yours truly) in Super Mario Bros. 3. It was a delightful find, too, giving us the power of flight.

This is why millions of gamers, to this day, wear raccoon suits and other fur items wherever we go.

Of course, PETA would have none of it – 21 years later – stating that “Tanukis are real-life raccoon dogs who are beaten and, as PETA’s undercover exposés show, often skinned alive for their fur.”

Just like in Super Mario Bros.

3. Call of Duty is apparently violent toward animals

When I think about Call of Duty I often think about killing people.

And not just because the franchise has gone so far down hill. Also because that’s what you do in Call of Duty. You kill and kill and kill some more.

And most of the organic life forms you shoot full of bullets or burn to death happen to be homo sapiens.

But according to PETA, the real problem with Call of Duty is that it contains cruelty to dogs.

Mercifully, the anti-fun organization decided to forgo making a hideously violent 2D sidescroller and instead sent Activision a care basket including copies of Nintendogs.

4. Watch Out Dishonored, PETA says Battlefield 3 is cruel to rats

There must be an ethical dilemma when it comes to cats and rats. Cats kill rats, and that – if I’m not mistaken – qualifies as cruelty toward animals.

So what’s to be done with the cats? Pretty soon we have a reverse of the Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly rhyme on our hands.

Oh, and thanks to jerks like me covering this bad crazy, you can probably expect a bunch more browser-based games from the video game developer qua animal rights group qua attention-mongers.

Though this last one must violate copyright…mustn’t it?

In all seriousness though, this is like the flimsier version of the “Shooter killed 15 people because of Call of Duty” argument we see every time the press encounters a mass shooting with even the most tangential relationship to video games.

And I know…I really do…none of this should get us riled up, and we’d all be better off ignoring it. But I can’t help myself. It’s all so silly, how can we not pay attention to it?

At some point the folks at PETA are going to need to do some soul-searching and figure out how they can be taken seriously again.

These video game stunts are far milder than many of the crazy practices the organization engages in on a regular basis, some of which have real-world repercussions especially to medical advances.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

It’s actually really funny. One thing that I hate to admit is that the game is actually very well done. The look, the music, it looks so nice but how many hours did they put into this, when they could have been doing something else within the real world. I have a hard time understanding their reason for making this aside from the fact that they want attention. Making this will not stop me from buying the new pokemon game of protesting the series. Pokemon was a part of my childhood and I hate them for trying to ruin it for me.

Another thing is that, I was on an article regarding the mario tanooki game and a commenter, claiming to be a person who does not support PETA but who is against the fur trade, argued with the other commenters saying that the game was not attacking Mario but the fur trade and that those who were offended at the inaccurate portrayal of Mario were those without compassion for animals, even though it was OBVIOUSLY attacking Mario. If PETA wanted to spread these messages through browser games, they should use the mechanics but change the characters if anything!

Also, I’m not familiar with copyright laws but are they protected under parody and free speech?

In terms of using media events to bring attention to their issues, well, I’m not sure I can reall get angry at them for that.

In a case of don’t shoot the messanger, I don’t see the problem with using a silly and quite cynical release by Nintendo (i.e. one motivated purely by profit seeking), to bring attention to issues of animal cruelty in an attempt to get, espcecially young people and kids, more aware of it in their own lives.

This goes to “Me Again”‘s point above. Using something famous to make a pardoy of that thing to effectively make a point against certain ancillery

PETA has been a joke for quite some time now- though it does always cause a stir when they protest in our town by bringing in the naked femail PETA volunteers painted with tiger stripes and locked in a cage.

They seem to think animals are people, which is really quite insulting to the intelligence. Because their true purpose isn’t to have animals ethically treated, but to give animals human rights, their arguments have fallen flat, and this sort of thing is what they’re left with.

The Pokemon one, however, is a new low. Think about the progression this way-

1. PETA starts off by protesting real harm done to real animals. 2. PETA starts protesting harm to real animals, but even where the pain is somewhat minimalized (such as in a slaughterhouse) 3. PETA protests the depiction of harm to real animals (such as in a movie) 4. PETA protests the depiction of harm to animated versions of real animals (such as the Mario thing, I guess?) 5. PETA protests the depiction of harm done to animated versions of mythical creatures that don’t exist in reality. 6. Next, PETA will hold a book-burning of the Lord of the Rings trilogy because of all the violence against Orcs.

Honestly, nothing PETA does any more gets me at all riled up. They’ve really just become a parody of themselves, and they were never able to be taken very seriously to begin with. When they keep missing the point and doing these ridiculous things over and over and over again, all it really does is undermine what little credibility they may have had to begin with. They’re only hurting themselves with these idiotic crusades, so I say let them keep doing it.

If nothing else, PETA can provide you with a good laugh. I played their Pokemon game and cracked up the whole time. It’s awful, yes, but hilariously awful.